Retro Corner: 'Super Mario Land'

To celebrate the opening of the belated Nintendo 3DS eShop, we're taking a look at its most tantalising launch title. No, not Pokédex 3D, but Super Mario Land, a game that gives Tetris and Pokémon Red and Blue a run for their money in being the most popular Game Boy game. It's also one of Mario's most profitable outings, selling more copies than Super Mario Bros. 3 and the revolutionary Super Mario 64. Now available to download for just a few quid and without having to put up with that eye-straining green screen, we revisit the famed mascot's first handheld outing.

Super Mario Land is, by all accounts, a pretty bizarre game. For a franchise that founded itself on eating mushrooms to get bigger and traveling down pipes, it's quite a departure for the plumber. Each of the four worlds were takes on real world environments, including Egypt, Easter Island and Asia, with themed enemies to match; fire-breathing lions were encountered throughout the end of the first world, while bounding karate men had to be avoided towards the end of the game. Other twists included hovering UFOs, and an alien in a spaceship for a final boss. Of course, since it was released close to the start of the franchise's lifespan, there was room to make up your own world without upsetting fans.

It also played rather differently, too. Mario didn't feel quite as nimble or agile as his NES counterparts, and while the regular, non-Super Mario is generally quite small, on the Game Boy screen he felt miniscule. It was a slower and more precise platformer, and a lot of stages were broken up with gauntlets of jumping between moving ledges that were easily missed. A lot of the series staples were present but with novel twists; Koopa's shells couldn't be launched and simply exploded, fireballs would ricochet around enclosed environments at a frightening pace, and at certain parts of the game there were fists instead of piranha plants popping out of pipes.

Super Mario Land, however, created a few treasured ideas that haven't been replicated since. Instead of a flagpole at the end of a level, each stage had players climb up platforms and choose between two doorways, one which went straight to the next level, and the other to a mini-game rewarding them with extra lives. Elsewhere, there were enjoyable submarine and plane flying sections, which had you blast enemies and blocks apart as the screen automatically panned across, and both culminated in some memorable boss battles. Finishing the game would also unlock a Hard mode, adding more enemies and falling obstacles to avoid, but the option would be erased once the Game Boy was turned off, making it a rarely used or remembered feature.

Despite its many oddities, it certainly left behind a legacy in the Mario franchise. It was followed by a more graphically impressive and thematically conventional sequel in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, which introduced Wario, Mario's evil counterpart. Wario was later given his own game in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, and as a character has since been a mainstay of Mario spinoffs ever since. Similarly, the princess at the end of each world, Daisy, was introduced as a more friendly counterpart to Princess Peach, and would also appear in the likes of Mario Kart and Mario Party. And what of alien boss Tatanga? Well, the less said about him the better.

Do you have many fond memories of Super Mario Land? Have you played the 3DS version yet? Add a comment to the space below!